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XG-FAST is in the early stages of lab testing, but has exceeded expectations in trials with several customers so far, according to Nokia. One of those trials took place last October, when BT and Alcatel-Lucent achieved combined upstream and downstream speeds of 5.6Gb/s under laboratory conditions across 35m of BT’s own copper cables.

The latest trial conducted at Deutsche Telekom's cable laboratory in Darmstadt, Germany, generated aggregated bandwidth exceeding 11Gbps on two bonded pairs of Category 6 cable across 50m distance. Similar tests using drop cables representative of those used in Deutsche Telekom’s network achieved aggregate rates that exceed 8Gb/s over 50m. All trials were performed using prototype equipment from Bell Labs under laboratory conditions.

XG-FAST will also be capable of delivering symmetric gigabit services at distances of 70m, enabling operators to deliver fibre-like speeds inside buildings using existing telephone lines, and eliminating the need to install new cabling. This speeds up installation and provides less disturbance for end users, according to Nokia.

Bruno Jacobfeuerborn, CTO of Deutsche Telekom, said: "Working on this demonstration we can see the future possibilities of XG-FAST in maximising our existing assets. This will provide another technology option, which could enable us to offer high-speed connectivity to our customers quickly and cost-effectively, and at the same time, move our fibre infrastructure closer to our customers."

Semiconductor foundry CST Global is leading a UK government-funded project that could substantially reduce the cost of manufacturing high-speed laser diodes for next-generation fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) networks.

The market for passive optical networks (PON) is expanding rapidly as consumers upgrade their broadband connections to higher speeds. Indeed, this summer, CST Global said it had shipped more than 25 million lasers into PON markets worldwide. To meet the insatiable demand for bandwidth, the next generation of PON lasers will need to be both higher speed and lower cost.